Bottoms up: Fine time to buy wine, says premier cru

The market for fine wine crashed last year, leaving many burnt fingers in the biggest-ever downturn for what is always a speculative field.

But wine broker Premier Cru says the market has bottomed out, and should rise by 10% over the rest of the year as Chinese buyers splash out, sending prices higher.

Co-founder Stacey Golding said: “We believe there hasn’t been a better time to buy since 1998 or January 2009. Although we continue to see the prices of our most desired investment wines rise, there is a considerable opportunity for investors to profit in an ideal medium to longer term period and the sooner investors act, the more they can benefit from the turnaround.”

Industry confidence has been boosted by large wine merchants beginning to hold stock once more, and a readiness of investors to buy good-value stock has seen the market return to a more traditional level of stability. Golding added: “The fine wine market has consistently outperformed not only the gold index, which recently saw the worst two-day performance since 1983, ending a 10-year boom, but also the UK housing market.

“With the current economic unrest in Cyprus, investors are awakened to the fact that money is no longer ‘safe as houses’ or ‘in the bank’. We are therefore predicting an increase of 10% to December and see the market growing by 22% by Christmas 2014.”